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ARCHIVE
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The human mind is nothing more than a very powerful computer. I did not agree with this statement at first. After serious thought, I landed in a state of definite confusion. Could it be that the mind is simply a computer that is produced biologically and doesn't run a large company network but our bodies? Humans, as well as animals, could be nothing more than machines.
I really like this theory because it just boggles the mind but on a more sinister note, it drives down the final nail in the coffin of God. Evolution proved that people evolved from the same source as animals and questioned the notion that God inserted us onto this planet. We all know what kind of violent trouble that brought on from those peace-loving lambs of God. Now I have the nerve to group humans and animals with computers. These kinds of thoughts are possible when you see a college production of Inherit the Wind and the film Dogma in the same week as the Turing Machine is discussed in class. Knowledge is dangerous. A Turing Machine is an abstract idea of a the most powerful computer that could exist. Since it would be more powerful than anything, it would be more powerful than the human mind. This is only possible if the human mind is a machine. Consider the inner working of a human mind. Every bodily action is caused by a chemical reaction(often the contraction of muscle fibers), these are controlled by the brain. Actions of the brain are the result of thoughts and decisions which are calculated in the brain based on stored information as well as information that is entering your brain all the time. Can a computer be human? This theory can only be disproved by discovering what humans have that machines don't. If there is that one thing that a human mind has and a computer doesn't, it hasn't been found. If it is found, it will probably be found using technology and so can probably be duplicated with technology. The ideas of consciousness, love, emotion, creativity, learning and ideas are all things we cannot imagine as part of a computer. But things we cannot define either. It is the tendencies of computers and engineers alike to want to categorize everything that prevents the fluidity of human thought to spread throughout the electronic world. Engineers and scientist decide they should think like a computer but what if they worked on making a computer think like people? In the year ???? Imagine computers one thousand times as powerful as they are today. Imagine what they could do for themselves? All the information that we extract and input into our computers are stored simply as files. The information lies stagnant in storage and rarely interact with each other the way thoughts do in our mind. Computers were created the same way that there was no life in the primordial ooze of early earth and all of a sudden amino acids were spontaneously created. Soon enough amino acids found each other and formed DNA. From then on, living organisms learned all they could from nature, nature programed them just like humans programed computers. Science fiction writers depicted the lives of robots and computers showing human-like intelligence. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A space Odyssey described the demise of the HAL 9000 as a result of it showing human qualities of individuality, emotion, and spite. The human astronauts were jealous of a machine that could actually feel and think more efficiently than themselves. There could be a whole race of human machines one day. Computers could run the production of more computers. The physical laws of entropy explain how the universe is prone to unpredictability. Unpredictability could lead to diversity which is one thing most humans pride themselves on (while many seem to want to squash it.) But none the less, mechanical diversity among the computers could result in difference of thought... they can evolve.
The whole personal computer revolution where computer were brought mainstream and into people's homes was started when Steve Jobs looked at the Apple I. The pile of circuits and chips that Steve Wozniak built rang clear in the mind of Jobs as culture, the proliferation of thought. The Macintosh today is a sign of individuality and creativity. Computers are intertwined with our lives in ways beyond spreadsheets and email. |
